On 1 Jan, 2016 With
Caravaggio’s crimes exposed in Rome’s police files Michelangelo Merisi, aka Caravaggio, was notoriously bad-tempered and violent, constantly getting into physical altercations, confident that his moneyed patrons would fish him out of scrape after scrape. They mainly did, as it happened, and when they didn’t, he just skipped town for a while until the heat was off him. The stories about him have become part of his legend — the bad boy artist who lived fast, died young and left a sunstroked/syphilitic/stabbed/lead poisoned corpse — and it’s difficult to tell fact from gossip. Rome’s State Archives contain a myriad primary documents detailing Caravaggio’s many brushes with the law (among other information about his life and work) but until recently they were on…
Read More
On 13 Aug, 2015 With
Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. As one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art. At the tender young age of 9, Picasso completed his first painting: Le picador, a man riding a horse in a bullfight. His…
Read More
On 2 Aug, 2015 With
Interesting Facts about Michelangelo By Manali Oak Michelangelo was one of the greatest artists that Italy has ever produced. He is admired by the world for his works depicting his excellence in arts. Read on for some interesting facts about Michelangelo. Michelangelo was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor and architect. He was also a poet and an engineer. He made valuable contributions to each of the fields he worked in and remains being the best-documented artist of the 16th century. Let us look at some of the important and interesting facts about this great artist. Interesting Facts about Michelangelo Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475 near Arezzo, Tuscany. His birth name was Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. He was brought…
Read More
On 30 Jul, 2015 With
Portrait of young Rembrandt Leading scholar believes that the 16-year-old artist features in a Lievens painting By Martin Bailey AMSTERDAM. The earliest depiction of Rembrandt has been identified in a painting by his colleague, Jan Lievens. American art historian Dr Arthur Wheelock, of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, says that Rembrandt is the central figure in The Cardplayers, 1623-24, when Rembrandt was aged 16. The painting, owned by a private collector, is currently on show in a Lievens exhibition at the Rembrandthuis in Amsterdam (until 9 August), following its presentation in Washington and Milwaukee. The picture was sold at Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, on 8 May 2007. Rembrandt and Lievens studied together in Amsterdam under Pieter Lastman. Dr Wheelock is…
Read More
On 4 Aug, 2012 With
Singer Bob Dylan accused of plagiarizing photographs Singer Bob Dylan is being accused of plagiarism after several paintings in his recent art show were found to have “striking resemblances” to works by photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dmitri Kessel and Léon Busy. An example is Dylan’s painting titled Opium(above left), which appears to be directly copied from Busy’s Vietnam (above right). Dylan had copied six photographs — one of which an artificial Photoshop edit — from his Flickr stream. In response, the gallery hosting the show changed the exhibition’s description from a “visual diary” of Dylan’s travels to a “visual reflection”. A spokesperson tells The Guardian: “While the composition of some of Bob Dylan’s paintings are based on a variety of sources, including archival, historic images,…
Read More
On 22 Aug, 2011 With
Anders Zorn is the famous Swedish painter. He is famous for his paintings of the people of Dalarna, the part of Sweden where he was born, and his nudes in the open space. He earned a world-wide reputation as a portraitist. He made seven journeys to the USA. His models included three different American presidents. His art made him wealthy and he was thus able to build up a considerable collection of art. The objects were not only bought in his native country but also during the many travels he made abroad. In their joint will, Anders and Emma Zorn donated their entire holdings to the Swedish State. Some of his most important works can be seen at the National…
Read More
On 18 Aug, 2011 With
Odd Nerdrum faces heavy fines and a prison term for alleged tax evasion. Odd Nerdrum is one of Norway’s most internationally known contemporary artists but now he faces heavy fines and a prison term for alleged tax evasion. He’s had to appear in court in Oslo this week, where prosecutors suggested his financing has been as creative as his paintings. Nerdrum himself admitted in court on Tuesday that he kept nearly USD 1 million in cash in a safe deposit box at an Austrian bank, and that he “wasn’t very good” with numbers or accounting requirements. He denies he’s guilty of tax evasion, though, calling the charges against him “nonsense.” The artist, whose works have been compared to those of…
Read More
On 17 Aug, 2011 With
The Famous Fine Artist and his Muse Emma Zorn. Emma Zorn (née Lamm, 1860-1942) came from a well-to-do middle class Stockholm family. Her father, Martin Lamm, was a wholesale textile merchant and her mother, Henriette, had the maiden name of Meyerson. They had three children Herman, Anna and Emma. The family, which was of Jewish descent, had very pronounced cultural interests and conducted an intense social life. There were many artists in their circle of friends and it was also through such an acquaintance that Emma met Anders Zorn who was of the same age. She happened to be babysitting for her nephew Nils when he was to be painted by Zorn in the winter of 1881. It turned out to…
Read More
On 5 Aug, 2011 With
Henri Fantin-Latour (14 January 1836 – 25 August 1904) was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers. As a youth, he received drawing lessons from his father, who was an artist. In 1850 he entered the Ecole de Dessin, where he studied with Lecoq de Boisbaudran. After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1854, he devoted much time to copying the works of the old masters in the Louvre. Although he befriended several of the young artists who would later be associated with Impressionism, including Whistler and Manet, Fantin’s own work remained conservative and classical in style. Whistler brought attention to Fantin in England, where his still-lifes sold so well that they were “practically unknown in France during his lifetime”. In addition to his realistic paintings, Fantin-Latour created imaginative lithographs inspired by…
Read More
On 11 Jan, 2011 With
In 1943 Picasso (age 62) then kept company with young art student Françoise Gilot (born in 1921). Their two children were Claude (1947) and Paloma (1949) who was named for the dove of peace that Picasso painted in support of the peace movement post World War II. Gilot, frustrated with Picasso’s relationships with other woman and his abusive nature left him in 1953. Gilot’s book “Life with Picasso” was published 11 years after their separation. In 1970 she married American physician-researcher Jonas Salk (who later died in 1995).
Read More
